Do we need any more evidence?

Our schools are in the middle of their UIL contests this time of year. The UIL web site states:

The University Interscholastic League exists to provide educational extracurricular academic, athletic, and music contests. The UIL was created by The University of Texas at Austin in 1909 and has grown into the largest inter-school organization of its kind in the world.

These state-wide contests motivate kids, teachers and schools to strive for excellence in academic subjects, athletics and the arts. To give you an example of how AMAZING Middle School kids can play, here is an audio clip of the Tejeda Middle School Honor Orchestra playing two movements from the Leyden Serenade last week at their UIL contest. All three judges gave them the highest possible scores. (DISCLAIMER: My wife, Paula, is their teacher and I coach the bass players a few mornings every week before school, so I’m definitely biased. However, the judges agreed with me that these kids are great!)

Listening to this recording reminded me that we are in the middle of a real budget crisis in Texas and a horrible recession. But, why is it that the first thing that folks talk about eliminating from our schools is the arts? Study after study proves that this is a bad policy and will hurt our kids and our future. Nobody suggests cutting football from every school!

The Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA) has a web site with tons of materials for arts advocacy.

These materials show that the study of performing arts leads to:

* improved test scores (music students in Texas All-State perform 22% better on the SATs than their peers. Students just enrolled in the arts perform 13% better.)
* a high state of motivation that produces the sustained attention necessary to improve performance. (In Texas, highs schools rated “Exemplary” have a 60% participation rate in the fine arts. Schools rated “Low Performing” only have 43% arts participation rates.)
* there are specific links that exist between high levels of music training and the ability to manipulate information in both working and long-term memory
* there are specific links between the practice of music and skills in geometrical representation

The arts train students for the future. Best selling business author Daniel Pink says, “We need to make sure we are preparing our kids for their future and not our past . . . What I see in businesses is a premium on novelty, nuance and customization. That’s what business is about today. And I fear that our schools are going exactly in the opposite direction. They are increasingly about routines, right answers, and standardization at precisely the moment that the economy is no longer about those things.”

I’m proud to have the opportunity to work with the young musicians at Tejeda Middle School. I know this early training will help them in all their studies throughout their entire academic careers. Let’s just hope that these programs don’t disappear.